Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Eli Lilly & Co. sued Biogen Idec Inc.
in a London court to revoke a European patent on a potential
treatment for immune-system diseases.

Biogen’s patent on the use of a class of medicines known as
BAFF inhibitors to regulate the activity of a type of white
blood cell is “not new” and doesn’t “involve an inventive
step,” Eli Lilly said in court papers filed in London in
November.

Eli Lilly, whose top-selling schizophrenia drug Zyprexa
lost its U.S. patent protection in October, is working to
overcome expiring patents by investing in research. The
Indianapolis-based drugmaker has new treatments for Alzheimer’s,
diabetes and cancer in final-stage trials.

Biogen, the world’s largest maker of medicines for multiple
sclerosis, responded in November saying its BAFF inhibitors
patent is valid. Penny Gilbert, a lawyer for the Weston,
Massachusetts-based company, didn’t respond to a phone call
yesterday requesting comment.

Eli Lilly lost a related patent dispute before the U.K.
Supreme Court in November when the court ruled for Rockville,
Maryland-based Human Genome Sciences Inc. over another potential
treatment for immune diseases. Eli Lilly had argued Human
Genome’s list of uses for the neutrokine alpha protein was too
vague.

Gregory Kueterman, a spokesman for Eli Lilly, declined to
comment on the Biogen litigation because the case is ongoing.

Ironwood Says Synergy Voluntarily Dismissed New York Lawsuit

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Synergy Pharmaceuticals
Inc. voluntarily dropped a lawsuit filed in a New York court
against the drugmaker and its chief scientific officer.

The lawsuit, which related to a matter before the European
Patent Office, was dismissed without prejudice on Dec. 29,
Ironwood said yesterday in a U.S. regulatory filing.

For more patent news, click here.

Trademark

‘Beverly Hillbillies’ Actress Settles Trademark Suit with Mattel

The actress who played Elly May Clampett on “The Beverly
Hillbillies” television program settled her trademark
infringement suit against Mattel Inc., according to a court
filing.

Donna Douglas of Zachary, Louisiana, claimed her rights
were infringed by an “Elly May” Barbie doll made and sold by
Mattel. She sued the company in federal court in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, in May.

Even though the 274-episode show ended 40 years ago,
Douglas still makes personal appearances in association with the
role, she said in court papers.

Douglas said that she was harmed by El Segundo, California-based Mattel’s introduction of the “Elly May” Barbie doll in
December 2002. The package for the doll features a photo of her
in the role and, she claims, the doll is designed to resemble
her.

She never endorsed the doll, nor gave Mattel permission to
use her name, image or likeness to promote the doll, Douglas
said in her complaint.

No terms of the settlement were disclosed in the Dec. 27
court filing. When the suit was filed, Mattel spokeswoman Jules
Andres said in an e-mail that the toy company had “licensed the
rights to Beverly Hillbillies for this product through all the
appropriate channels.”

The case is Douglas v. Mattel Inc., 3:11-cv-00297-FJP-CN,
U.S. District Court, Middle District of Louisiana (Baton Rouge).

Web-Name Expansion Must Ease Corporate Concerns, U.S. Says

The nonprofit group that manages the Internet’s address
system needs to take steps to ease corporate concerns over a
program to add hundreds of top-level domains beyond .com and
.net, the U.S. Commerce Department said.

Once the application period for Web suffixes ends, the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers should
assess the need to phase in the introduction of domains,
Lawrence Strickling, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, wrote in a
Jan. 3 letter to Icann Chairman Stephen Crocker.

During meetings with business representatives in recent
weeks, the Commerce Department has “learned that there is
tremendous concern about specifics of the program that may lead
to a number of unintended and unforeseen consequences and could
jeopardize its success,” Strickling wrote.

General Electric Co., Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola Co.
are among more than 40 companies that have joined with the
Association of National Advertisers to oppose the expansion,
saying it will increase costs for companies, confuse customers
and create new risks of Internet fraud.

Icann, operating under a Commerce Department contract,
approved a plan in June to expand the number of top-level
domains beyond .com, .net and .org to spur online innovation.
The group will start accepting applications Jan. 12 for Web
suffixes including company and brand names, cities and words
such as .book. Applications will cost $185,000 for each domain.

In his letter, Strickling also urged Icann to take steps to
“minimize the perceived need” for trademark owners to
defensively register new top-level domains that they have no
interest in operating, and improve awareness of the “purpose
and scope” of the program.

Strickling runs the National Telecommunications and
Information Administration, the Commerce Department unit that
oversees the Icann-held contract. He said his agency does “not
seek to interfere with the decisions and compromises” reached
during Icann’s six-year deliberations over the expansion.

Icann appreciates that Strickling “recognizes that many of
the recent concerns expressed about the new top-level domain
program are more about ‘perceived’ problems than actual
deficiencies,” Crocker said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
Icann will review Strickling’s recommendations and those of
other parties “with the intent of making this program truly
beneficial to the global Internet community,” Crocker said.

The Association of National Advertisers, while appreciative
of the Commerce Department raising the industry’s concerns with
Icann, is disappointed the agency didn’t call for a pause or
delay in the domain-expansion program, Dan Jaffe, ANA’s
executive vice president of government relations, said in an
interview yesterday.

The Federal Trade Commission said in a Dec. 16 letter that
Icann should introduce the expansion as a pilot program and
reduce the number of domains created to lower the risk of
consumer fraud. The FTC, which has no direct authority over
Icann, can act when companies engage in deceptive trade
practices.

For more trademark news, click here.

Microsoft Sues U.K. Retailer Comet for Selling Counterfeit CDs

Comet made fake versions of Windows Vista and Windows XP
recovery CDs at a factory in Hampshire, England, then sold them
at its retail outlets across the U.K., Microsoft said in a
statement on its website.

“Comet produced and sold thousands of counterfeit Windows
CDs to unsuspecting customers in the United Kingdom,” David
Finn, associate general counsel in Microsoft’s anti-piracy unit,
said in the statement.

Microsoft has replaced Vista and Windows XP with Windows 7,
the operating system it introduced in October 2009. Together,
the Windows products run more than 90 percent of the world’s PCs
and account for 27 percent of Redmond, Washington-based
Microsoft’s revenue, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Comet said in an e-mailed statement it hadn’t infringed
Microsoft’s copyright and would defend the claim vigorously.
Kesa agreed in November to sell the money-losing Comet unit to
focus on markets such as France.

The Business Software Alliance, a lobbying group whose
members include Microsoft, has estimated that piracy of computer
software cost the industry $59 billion in 2010, although the
U.S. Government Accountability Office has said the issue is too
complex to quantify.

For more copyright news, click here.

Trade Secrets/Industrial Espionage

Celgene, Agios Sued Over IP Agreement by Penn Cancer Center

Celgene Corp., a pharmaceutical company focused on cancer
treatments, is one of three defendants sued by a cancer
institute at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute sued Celgene,
Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Dr. Craig Thompson in federal
court in New York, seeking as much as $1 billion in compensation
for intellectual property it said was subject to an agreement
Thompson made when he was the institute’s scientific director.

Thompson is presently president and chief executive of the
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, which isn’t a party to
the litigation.

That IP, related to cancer metabolism research, was funded
in part or in whole by the institute, according to court papers.
The institute claims it’s suffered damages in excess of $1
billion.

Agios, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a company founded by
Thompson, and Summit, New Jersey-based Celgene paid $130 million
for a license to develop on an exclusive basis drugs resulting
from Agios research, according to the complaint.

The institute asked the court to declare the rights and
interests of each party in the litigation, and for awards of
damages that “ultimately exceed $1 billion.”

Agios -- where Thompson is listed as a founder -- “does
not comment on the specifics of pending litigation,” company
spokesman Dan Budwick said in an e-mail.

“The claims asserted in this case are without merit,” he
added. “Agios always has and will continue to operate with the
highest level of integrity.”

According to the most recent court filing, Thompson and
Agios must respond to the complaint by Feb. 3.

The case is the Leonard and Madlyn Abramson Family Cancer
Research Institute at the Abramson Cancer Center of the
University of Pennsylvania v. Thompson, 1:11-cv-09108-LAK, U.S.
District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).